In support of the latest issue of MAKE, Volume 28, MAKE contributor Stefan Jones sent me a link to this PDF of a booklet from the 1950s on model airplane building. It was put out by Sterling Models and reprinted from Flying Models Magazine. Our Toys and Games issues contains a wonderful Maker Profile of Paul Guillow, pretty much the father of “stick and tissue” plane kits and balsa wood gliders. This PDF will whet your whistle while you’re waiting for your issue.

Did you ever build a Guillow model plane kit? We’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Gareth Branwyn is a freelancer writer and the former Editorial Director of Maker Media. He is the author or editor of over a dozen books on technology, DIY, and geek culture. He is currently a contributor for Boing Boing and WINK Books. And he has a new best-of writing collection and “lazy man’s memoir,” called Borg Like Me.

http://twitter.com/scottjedwards Scott Edwards

I sure did! Great memories. Nothing like building a balsa frame airplane.

Anonymous

I did too. I made a Guillow stick and tissue glider that had (I think) a 5′ wingspan.Maybe 4′ It was big, tho. It was a heck of a lot harder than I anticipated. I was pretty ADD, so sticking with something that took that much patience was a real accomplishment for me. She was a beaut. The first time my dad and I took it out for a flight, a gust of wind caught it, it barreled into the trees on the edge of the field, and ripped off one of the wings and badly tore the doped tissue. I was heartbroken.

http://twitter.com/fotoflojoe Joseph Cummings

Oh, heck yeah! I built many of them! Mustangs, Spitfires, Focke Wolfes, Tiger Moths… Unfortunately, they all met the same fate as Mr Branwyn’s glider!

These last few months, I’ve been jonesing to build another – I think I will!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stefan_e_jones/ Stefan Jones

I had a very discouraging experience as a little kid trying to build a Guillow’s biplane of some sort. I thought my father (who had stories about building planes as a kid) would help, but after a couple of evenings he went back to his usual (ahem) liquid recreations.

Really, without a mentor of some sort something as complex as a stick-and-tissue model is an incredible leap for a kid. I read the books, but they were not a substitute for practical craftsman know-how . . . and the money for the right tools and supplies.

Hell . . . while I can confidentially call myself a skilled model rocket builder, a more recent attempt at a stick-and-tissue model still proved to be quite a challenge. I’m one panel of tissue away from finishing a Guillow’s Cessna 180. I made a lot of mistakes, fortunately none of them “fatal.”